Witch Hat Atelier Manga Is About a Third Done, Creator Estimates

In a recent interview with Anime Corner during Los Angeles Kodansha House, Witch Hat Atelier creator Kamome Shirahama spoke in depth about her manga series, breaking down some of the foundations of the story, its characters, and its magic system. In addition, Shirahama-sensei told us how far into the overall story the manga is as of July 5, 2026, when the interview took place. You can also read the full interview with Kamome Shirahama.

Shirahama-sensei explained that the manga has “finished introducing the world and building up the world.” At the time of publication, the Witch Hat Atelier manga has released 98 complete chapters (164 if you count partial chapters as their own chapters) and has been serialized in Kodansha’s magazine Morning Two since July 2016.

Finishing her answer, Shirahama-sensei explained “I would say maybe we are about a third of the way into the story. It’s really difficult to say. I will say that we have definitely hit a major turning point with the Silver Eve arc. As for what’s going to happen in the future, I do have the broad strokes of the story planned out and that’s been decided, but I don’t really know the small details of how the story is going to progress. That’s not something I decided in advance. It’s something that newly develops over time as I’m creating the story. So, nothing’s really fixed in stone, but I do think about where I’m going to land.”

Shirahama-sensei has previously referred to the Silver Eve Festival arc as a turning point as early as 2024, and has commented that the broad course of the story was planned even earlier than that. In our interview she also gave some insight into how characters’ backstories were constructed, stating that, for the characters within the story, “it’s about half and half” when it comes to origins being thought of beforehand or flowing organically from the story.

You can read Witch Hat Atelier on K Manga. Season 2 of the anime adaptation was announced this past June and revealed a teaser trailer.

In a separate interview we recently had the opportunity to conduct, Anime Corner got to chat with the Witch Hat Atelier anime’s Producer Hirotsugu Ogo, Director Ayumu Watanabe, and Coco’s Japanese voice actress Rena Motomura. We learned that the story will be getting darker in the future, which was why they tried to fit in a lot of the bright sides in the first season.

©Kamome Shirahama / Kodansha